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Trudeau promises Canadian cities more funding, greater voice in Ottawa

Justin Trudeau has dusted off the “new deal for cities” initiative — launched by former prime minister Paul Martin — to revive Ottawa’s dealings with towns and cities as the new Liberal government prepares to go on an infrastructure spending spree.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talks with Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson on Parliament Hill Friday as he meets with the representatives of 20 other large Canadian cities. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is promising a new relationship with Canadian municipalities to give them more funding and a greater voice in Ottawa.

Trudeau has dusted off the “new deal for cities” initiative — formally launched by former prime minister Paul Martin — to revive Ottawa’s dealings with towns and cities as the new Liberal government prepares to go on an infrastructure spending spree.

“We are restarting a relationship that had been significantly neglected over the past 10 years, and ensuring that we get the money flowing in a responsible and rapid way is a priority for all of us,” Trudeau said Friday.

“We are ensuring that we invest in our communities, in the infrastructure that is needed, to create jobs in the short term, but also to create economic growth in the medium and long term.”

The prime minister made the comments after meeting with the political representatives from Canada’s 21 largest cities for about an hour on Friday — the first such meeting in more than a decade, municipal officials say.

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The new relationship is underscored by the promise of a big boost in infrastructure spending — an extra $60 billion over the next decade, bringing it to almost $125 billion.

Mayors say they are also cheered by a new flexibility from Ottawa in how that money gets spent and perhaps even a new funding formula that reduces the cost-sharing burden now placed on towns and cities.

Toronto Mayor John Tory said the new approach was noted by the mayors who chafed as the role of cities and partnerships with other levels of government was on the decline in past years.

“Everything has changed,” Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said in an interview.

“I’ve had more meetings with ministers with this government in two months than I did in five years with the previous government.

“The very fact they want to reach out, consult, respect, listen, debate, is great for cities and it’s great for people in the cities.”

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said the Friday meeting was about a “new partnership. Today was about a new deal.”

“We had a problem called Stephen Harper in the past, but now we have a government who’s willing to play as full partners and I’m pleased with that,” Coderre said.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said Trudeau seems prepared to go beyond even Martin’s vision for a new deal with cities.

“The signals we’re getting from Prime Minister Trudeau and his team really leapfrog well beyond the new deal for cities that came with the Martin government.

“We’re talking about a whole new relationship,” Robertson told reporters.

But the mayors said there is a pragmatic element to the government’s new focus on cities. Both Tory and Coderre noted that if Ottawa wants to act on initiatives such as climate change or garnering social backing of projects such as pipelines, municipalities are often the level of government closest to the action.

Mayors said they are buoyed by discussions on two fronts in particular.

First, municipal leaders are pushing Ottawa to let them spend the funding with as few strings attached as possible. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Ottawa should set the outlines on what the money should be used for and demand stringent reporting to ensure it was properly spent.

“But don’t make people in Ottawa make a decision on every roof of every arena. Let municipalities handle those decisions,” Nenshi said.

Ottawa has already signalled that it will allow some funding to be spent for repairs and upgrades to existing infrastructure. For Toronto, that means being able to tackle $2 billion in outstanding repairs to social housing in the city and making upgrades to the transit system on things like modernized signals.

Secondly, municipalities want a new funding formula. Traditionally, the cost of infrastructure projects has been split equally among the federal, provincial and municipal governments.

But municipalities are eyeing a new formula that would see Ottawa pay half the cost, provinces around 33 per cent and the municipal share drop to under 20 per cent.

Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi has said that the government is open to discussions about changing the funding formula, a message that Trudeau echoed on Friday.

“We understand that some cities have different circumstances and different challenges,” Trudeau said.

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